In February 2018, Maritime Pastoral Training Foundation, Ltd. was founded as a non-profit charitable organization. On March 7, 2018 the Internal Revenue Service confirmed MPTF's status as a 501 (c) (3) tax-exempt charity. We created MPTF to provide the inland waterways with the same kind of shipboard training opportunities as those found in coastal areas or on the Great Lakes. To accomplish this, we set our sights on acquiring the historic Vietnam War gunboat, PTF-26, with an impressive 20 year record of public service both as an operational museum ship & an award-winning Sea Scout training vessel based in Sacramento, CA. Our present focus is to relocate PTF-26 from the Sacramento River to the Ohio River by December 2020. Renamed T/S JESSE L. BROWN, PTF-26 will serve as a dockside museum ship and as a hands-on training vessel for maritime-oriented youth organizations (Sea Cadets, Sea Scouting, NJROTC), maritime chaplains and prospective mariners. PTF-26 would serve as home to the 21-day residential Maritime Chaplains School, tentatively scheduled to convene Summer 2021.
